The iPhone 3GS launch appeared to have taken away online searches of the Palm Pre, according to an analysis by market research firm comScore.

"Trends in the number of weekly searchers on terms relating to the Palm Pre suggest that the ?Now Network? advertising campaign conducted by Sprint during the second half of May helped generate early interest in the device. The number of searchers more than doubled during the week ending May 24, coinciding with the YouTube homepage takeover. Interest declined somewhat during the following week, but rebounded in the two subsequent weeks after the official launch of the device. The final two weeks in June saw the numbers of searchers fall to approximately half the number of the peak week of activity.

Interestingly, this decline in Palm Pre search activity coincided with the launch of the Apple iPhone OS 3.0 on June 17 and launch of the iPhone 3GS two days later. Throughout May and the first week of June, the number of unique iPhone searchers remained fairly consistent at approximately one million people per week. In the week prior to the launch of the 3GS, however, the number of iPhone searchers more than doubled to 2.3 million people during the week of the launch.

The Palm Pre appeared to resonate with a different audience than those interested in the iPhone. Of the people who searched for Palm Pre-related terms during the eight weeks of the study, just 11 percent also searched on iPhone-related terms, suggesting that the majority of the people interested in the Pre have little interest in the iPhone."

Both Apple and Palm ran online marketing campaign and TV commercial. The Apple campaign drove more people to AT&T stores than the Palm Pre push.

comScore examined the impact of the respective device launches on traffic to the online store locator features at ATT.com and Sprint.com to understand how such intent may have been impacted. "The week the Palm Pre launched, Sprint.com experienced a 42-percent increase to 137,000 visitors to its online store locator page, followed by a 41-percent jump to 193,000 visitors the subsequent week. Meanwhile, the AT&T find-a-store feature on Wireless.ATT.com, saw traffic jump 90 percent to 295,000 visitors during the week of the iPhone 3GS launch."